Killer Instinct video game launches on Steam, claims over 10 million players

Microsoft’s Killer Instinct video game launches on Steam today. The fighter is already available on Xbox One and Windows 10 and players will be able to compete against each other regardless of the version they own in several, but not all, game modes.

“Cross-Network play is limited to Exhibition, Lobby mode, and Shadow Lords MP, however, you cannot invite friends to compete in Exhibition if they are not on the same platform,” the recently published faq reads. “The easiest workaround for this is to create a lobby, name it with specific parameters, and have players search for that lobby.”

While the Xbox One and Windows 10 versions feature complete cross-buy support (i.e. buying content on one version unlocks it on the other), the Steam version will function completely separately and will not unlock content bought for the Xbox One or Windows 10 editions.

To celebrate the launch of the Steam version of Killer Instinct, the official Twitter account tweeted that the game now has over 10 million users across all versions. As with most numbers released by marketing teams, it’s difficult to judge just how significant this number is given that Killer Instinct is essentially free-to-play on Xbox One and Windows 10 and has had bundles of in-game content given away in Games With Gold promotions on Xbox One at least two times now in several regions.

It’s likely that this number reflects the number of Xbox Live accounts who have played the game at least once rather than the volume of active players who login on a regular basis or have paid money to unlock additional content. I personally have 38 Xbox Live friends who have played Killer Instinct but more than half of these have only played less than half an hour of it and only two have racked up more than a day’s worth of playtime since it launched several years ago.

Do you play Killer Instinct and do you think it will see much success on Steam? Let us know in the comments below.